This spring, the meaning of having a mother and the meaning of being a mother have merged into a new reality for me -- one that has nothing to do with pastel images of doting children bringing Mother's Day flowers to a sweetly smiling woman.

In fact, there's a negative term out there -- "Helicopter Mom" -- that is actually more pertinent to what my life has recently become.

In pop-psych speak, "helicoptering" refers to how over-involved parents hover over their children. The term is embraced by many high school and college administrators, but it's often extended to parents of adult children who haven't reached escape velocity into financial and emotional independence.

Magazines cluck over the phenomenon, and it's common wisdom that helicoptering is to blame for a great range of social ills. Worst are baby-boomer "helicopters," who supposedly act out of pure narcissism. Well, lately I haven't had much time to check a mirror, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't fall in love with the fatigue-creased image I'd see there.

I first heard the term "helicopter" when my son was in college. Since his high school junior year, he's suffered from a medical syndrome that's painful, debilitating and defiant of any effective treatment, despite years of consultations. Each recurrence challenges his ability to function normally, and sometimes he's brought to his knees. In 1998, they didn't even have a name for the syndrome; and a decade later, although the syndrome has become much more common, very little more is known about it.

Our efforts to fill in the college dean's office and arrange for coordinated medical and personal support were met with, essentially, "Go away, he's ours now." They clearly expected to prove to themselves that the disease was just the consequence of parental over-protectiveness. Three miserable semesters later, they finally conceded that he really did have a physical disability, recognized that they were in well over their administrative heads, and asked what needed to be done. To his great credit, my son hung in there as best he could despite the pain and bureaucratic impediments. Heroically, he graduated with honors and got a good job on the West Coast. But the condition persists in disrupting his life.

Meanwhile, even before he left the nest for college, I was finding myself increasingly enmeshed in the process and problems of my mother's aging. My sister, one of my four brothers, and I took turns on the "Sarasota Shuttle." When Mom had a heart attack in March, we suddenly faced 24/7 helicoptering.

My mother, 82, has spinal stenosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic pulmonary problems. This year's heart attack was her second (the first in 1986); and she had to choose between triple-bypass surgery or a potential fatal third attack within a year. Given the pain she already lives with, we were surprised when she opted for the open-heart surgery. She'd never had any surgery before in her life, and I don't think she really understood what lay ahead, not just the operation but its aftermath. Technically, she was "fully informed," but there was no ethical way to describe how hard convalescence would be for her. And we, her children, hardly foresaw what lay ahead for us, too.

As the six of us gathered in Sarasota, we vaguely understood that even if she survived the surgery, it was very likely she wouldn't emerge the same person. My sister and I expected that we would have to help her out much as we already had been: supervising finances, medical issues, wardrobe, walker and wheelchair repair and general outlook.

Our brothers had been involved to lesser degrees correlated with their degree of estrangement from her after some very difficult times in childhood. One had moved closer, about 90 minutes away from her, enabling him to visit her when his job permitted. But for new underwear and parsing Medicare D, it had been the daughters.

Mom made it through the surgery stunningly well, but the aftermath has been oppressively difficult, even without the worst-case complications like stroke. While she was still in the hospital, my sister and I spelled each other in 12- to 15-hour shifts -- taking up the slack for the overburdened nursing staff, advocating when we couldn't, soothing her pain as possible. We longed for the relief we expected when she went to rehab. No such relief.

The rehab facility, reputedly one of Sarasota's three best places, had a bay view, flat-screen televisions and chintz decor. But as the hospital social worker warned, "they're all short-staffed." The list of mishaps is long, including failing to treat a urinary tract infection for five days; leaving her lying in diarrhea more than once because the aides ignored call bells; and letting her sleep in her clothes the night before discharge -- not to mention medication mishaps, lack of communication with doctors and chronic dietary mistakes.

I, my sister, or my brother tried to be there as many days as we could. What we could do was limited, but clearly things would be worse if we weren't there. A constant but delicate mix of diplomacy and advocacy was needed. She begged to go home, and we agreed with her that things were almost intolerable; but leaving against orders would, we learned, terminate her Medicare benefits.

Now back at her retirement community, she's gone from independent status to mid-level assisted living. It took a week of 18-hour days to even begin to deal with the paperwork, equipment, Medicare, transport, pain management and so forth. Worn out after that week, I turned things over to my Floridian brother. And my sister will return in another week. For now, my mother remains in pain and too confused to resume her accustomed routines. We all worry about the future.

Sick patients' families are sometimes characterized as major pains-in-the-backside who hurt the patient more than they help. They are, by extension, "helicopter families," often helping with children or, less often, elderly patients. I'm here to tell you, however, with a medical system as badly broken as ours is, the ill child or adult who doesn't have an attendant "helicopter" is at a huge disadvantage.

I'm also here to tell you that being a helicopter for two different generations at once is depleting. While I've been navigating my mother's cardiac crisis and related family dynamics, my son has been grappling with a flare-up of his own disease. Twenty-eight years old and diagonally across the continent now, he's essentially on his own. But he knows that if there were anything I could do, I'd be there ASAP, as I've had to be on occasion. But let's hope I never have to choose between helping my son and helping my mother, because there just isn't enough of me to go around. And I only have one son and one parent. Others are dealing with much more.

When it comes to helicoptering for sick parents and sick children, it's not something you do for Hallmark cards or overpriced Mother's Day buffets, or any kind of annual sentimental acknowledgment that you either have a mother or are one. It's something you do because you simply can't not do it.

Of course, some mothers (mine included) just weren't hover-ers who could easily "not do it." And some adult children just don't have the personal resources to helicopter for an elderly parent. That means that some of us who are now helicoptering know that we're doing something never done for us in the past and/or unlikely to be done for us in the future. But to walk away from an elderly mother in trouble somehow isn't in us.

And every day I'm dealing with my mother's problems, I'm also trying to figure out how to avoid inflicting similar burdens on my son down the road. With our current system, I'm not sure that will be possible unless someone puts me out to sea on one of the few remaining chunks of arctic ice.

That kind of dark joke is common among those of us now helicoptering aging parents. For us, the Mother's Day ads and retail displays seem about as relevant to the real situation as movie car chases are to real crash scenes. But we can acknowledge the critical need for helicoptering that goes unrecognized and unappreciated except by others in the same pickle. And we can console each other, agreeing that it ain't easy even if it's critically necessary.

So here's to all the Helicopter mothers and Helicopter daughters (and sons, too)! Happy Mother's Day, Helicopters!